Story+1995-11-26+Los+Angeles,+CA

´´Thanks a lot, welcome.....I, uh.....I guess I always make, make my little speech here about lot of the songs tonight were written, uh.....with a lot of silence, they need a lot of silence to work so I appreciate your help and, uh, you feel like singing or clapping along, please don´t, you´ll be an embarrassment to your friends and family....I know this is L.A, so I hope I don´t have to come out there and confiscate any cellular phones and start slapping people around....I don´t wanna blow my good guy-image, you know....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Adam Raised a Cain´**

´´This is a, uh, song about a man that, uh....he gets out of prison and....and how hard it is for him to integrate himself back into, uh....back into his family and back into the world at large and.....what do you do if, uh....the thing that you do best kills you ?....this is called ´Straight Time´....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Straight Time´**

´´Thank you, thank you....this is uh.....this is a song, I guess it´s about, uh....self-knowledge coming a little too late....you suckers are quiet (chuckles)(cheers) I appreciate it, this is called ´Highway 29´....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Highway 29´**

´´Thank you very much, thank you.....uh, this is....this is a song, I guess it´s about how, uh ....we sort of decided that there´s a whole....group of Americans whose lives and dreams are expendable....and uh, it´s simply the price of doing business.....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Murder Incorporated´**

´´(some guy yells) A familiar-sounding voice.....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´If I Should Fall Behind´**

´´Thank you, uh....this next song, this is sort of a funny song because....I´ve read many times how it was, how it was misinterpreted....sort of like ´Louie Louie´ (chuckles) and uh ....I don´t know if that´s true or not, I can´t really tell but the only thing I do know is a lot more people bought the record than bought any of my other records....so I was laying in bed and I was thinking ´Ok....I was misunderstood....understood....you see where I´m going with the whole´ (chuckles) and uh, but uh, anyway, for those who misunderstood and bought it, my mother thanks you and my father thanks you (chuckles) my kids thank you (chuckles)....but the writer always gets, he gets his last blows, he gets his last shot so see if I can get it right this time.....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Born in the U.S.A´**

´´This is a song, uh, I guess it´s a song about getting it wrong, I guess, it´s uh....had many relationships in your life, I got, I got ´em wrong for about 40 years....it was different women but the same relationship....and it´s very easy to get it wrong for 40 years....it´s amazing to get it right after that (chuckles)....this is called ´Dry Lightning´....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Dry Lightning´**

´´(some guy yells ´Arriva !´) I say that myself very often....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Spare Parts´**

´´Thank you, I was, uh....I guess I was just about finished, I think I had (?) most of the songs for this, for this, for the record I just put out and I was down, downstairs at night and I pulled a book out that I´d bought years ago and never read....it was a book called Journey to Nowhere, had text by a fella named Dale Maharidge and photos by Michael Williamson, it was these two reporters, they, they hopped a train in St.Louis and I think they rode it all the way up to Oregon in the mid-80´s and, uh, tried to chronicle what was, what was going on beneath the radar, beneath the floodline, across the country, uh....as I, I traveled around a lot at that same time and I´d meet....I worked with a lot of people who said they saw a lot of people coming into the shelters, into the foodbanks, that they´d never seen before, people with their families, kids, people that were kind of, they had previously been getting by and uh....so I guess this is a song about two Americas....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Youngstown´**

´´Thank you....uh.....(some guy yells ´Love you, Bruce´) you´re a nice fellow also.... (someone yells) that´s what I tell my wife all the time.....(chuckles)....the, uh, these next group of songs are all set on the California-Mexico border and uh....uh, this first song, I guess in the, uh....in the 70´s the Mexican drug gangs took over the metamphetamine trade in the Central Valley of California, uh, I guess they were mainly up from Sinaloa and uh, the Mexican state of Sinaloa and they´d come up and they´d hire the migrant workers to, to, uh, cook up the, cook up the metamphetamine....which is, uh....this is called ´Sinaloa Cowboys´....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Sinaloa Cowboys´**

´´Thank you, this uh, this next song takes....it takes place, it´s about fellas in the border patrol, it takes place at the San Diego station....and uh....and how it´s impossible to tell where that line really is....” 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Balboa Park´ ´´Thank you, thank you, this is uh....this next song, this is set in San Diego too, it´s....a lot of these young kids, oh, 13, 14 years old, they come scooting across the river, either running dope or they come in....to sell themselves on.....in a section of San Diego called Balboa Park.....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´The Line´**

´´Thank you....I think....when I was about, I think when I was about, in my, 26, I, uh....I saw, the first time I saw John Ford Grapes of Wrath.....and uh....it was a picture that really, really affected me deeply, it was.....I guess this song is about the mystery of the, mystery of, I don´t know, human nature, human spirit....uh, how people keep going, how they always just keep going....uh, there was a beautiful scene at the end of the movie where Tom, he has to leave his family and leave his mother, he´s wanted and it´s after this dance, a beautiful dance scene and he takes his mother out into the trees at night.....and he says ´Mama, I have to go´....and she says....says ´Where you going, Tommy ? how, tell me how am I gonna know....how am I gonna know how you are ?´ and he gives this beautiful speech.....´I´ll be, I´ll be all around you in the darkness, Ma, you know, I´ll be everywhere because maybe we all don´t have....maybe, maybe we all don´t our own individual souls but maybe we´re all just small parts of....of one big soul´....and he disappears into the darkness....and the next scene is the, the Joad family in the truck heading, heading north to find some more work and uh....his mother says ´Well, we´ll just keep going....we´ve been beat up pretty badly, we´ll just keep going´ so....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Across the Border´**

´´This is a song about happiness, friendship, struggle, how it ain´t over till it´s over (chuckles) how it´s all, it´s still out there waiting....´long as you can.....stay alive.....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´This Hard Land´**

´´Thank you, stay alive if you can....here´s a, uh.....uh, there´s a movie coming out in the, uh, I guess late December, maybe early next year or so, it´s a picture called Dead Man Walking directed by Tim Robbins and.....it´s a story of a man who´s committed, committed murder and is waiting, uh, execution on death row....this is called ´Dead Man Walkin´....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Dead Man Walkin´´ (following ´This Hard Land´)**

´´Thank you very much, thank you....(?)....little bit more of this up here, Jim.....I´d like to, you´ve been a real fabulous audience, I wanna say thank you, I, this is, uh.....this is, uh, this is music that means a lot to me and you´ve shown me a lot of love tonight and I appreciate it....this next song, this is uh, it´s based on some incidents that happened down on the, uh, Texas Gulf Coast in the mid-80´s, at the end of the Vietnam War, a lot of refugees that came over and settled in and around, Viet-Vietnamese refugees came in and settled in and around the area ´cause it was a lot like home and there was tremendous tensions and violence between....the Vietnamese fishermen and the Texas fishermen..... this is uh....this is called ´Galveston Bay´....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Galveston Bay´**

´´Hey, I forgot one....well, I was reading a Jim Thompson book called The Killer in Me .....and it was highly entertaining....and (chuckles) in it there was this sheriff, he was real kind of a smart guy in this little hick town and he´s, he always spoke in cliches....and, you know, he´s plotting how to kill his enemies, uh....acting dumb and always speaking in, in all these cliches and so I said ´Gee, I like that, the kill your enemies part´ (chuckles) but uh....uh....I don´t know what to say about this (?)....”
 * 26.11.95 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´My Best Was Never Good Enough´**